Conference on the potential uses of nanofibres

9 October 2012

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The Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network has announced
details of a one-day conference, hosted in partnership with Nottingham
Trent University on 17 October, to look at ways in which the technology
to produce and incorporate nanofibres into nanocomposites has progressed
in the last year.

The conference is a follow-up to a successful
event held in November 2011 by the NanoKTN and the STFC’s Rutherford
Appleton Laboratory, on new developments in electrospinning of
nanofibres. This event will be of interest to all those who want to
learn more about the production and use of nanofibres for biomedical and
other applications. The event will also be a great opportunity for
networking for both academics and industry, to begin to explore
collaborative partnerships.

The event includes a number of
presentations from selected UK organisations including representatives
from The Electrospinning Company, Spheritech, Hollingsworth & Vose Co
Ltd, Thomas Swan & Co Ltd, Imperial College London and the Universities
of Manchester and Nottingham.

Dr Catherine Rogers from the School
of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham will discuss Innovative
manufacturing in regenerative medicine: a novel method to produce
electrospun scaffolds with tailored geometries. Electrospinning is
a technique widely used to fabricate micro- and nanofibrous scaffolds
for tissue engineering applications and in this presentation, Dr Rogers
will describe a novel method recently developed at Nottingham, to
produce collectors with defined patterns, by rapid prototyping and the
ability of these resulting plates to produce electrospun scaffolds with
tailored geometries.

This work was funded by the EPSRC Centre for Innovative
Manufacturing in Regenerative Medicine which aims to be an
integrated platform of world-class fundamental and translational
research in tissue engineering and stem cell science, specializing
in the design of biomaterials, the application of growth factors as
drugs, and in the scale-up and manufacturing of regenerative
medicine products.

Dr Jean-Philippe St-Pierre from Imperial
College London, will present on Designing a Bioactive
Osteochondral Construct for the Treatment of Osteoarthritis.
Articular cartilage damage can progress to clinical signs of
osteoarthritis because of the limited capacity for self-repair of
the tissue. Current cell-based repair strategies including marrow
stimulation and autologous chondrocyte implantation have had limited
long-term clinical success. Tissue engineering promises to improve
the clinical outcome of articular cartilage lesions but is
challenging as the tissue functions stem from its complex
depth-dependent organisation.

Complementing the programme,
will be a technology pitch session, company exhibition, and academic
posters. Applications are currently being invited from companies to
give a five minute technology pitch and from academics wishing to
promote their research through the poster session.

“The use
of Nanofibres and electrospinning are becoming more widespread in
regenerative medicine and we are delighted to have presentations
from some of the most innovative organisations working in this space
at our event. We hope the conference will give these organisations a
platform for their ideas, with the aim to develop collaborative
links with potential business partners, to encourage
commercialisation,” said Dr Barry Park, Theme Manager at the NanoKTN.